Saudis Would Allow Israel to Attack Iran

Saudi Arabia would turn the other cheek and allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, according to Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

By Avraham Zuroff

First Publish: 7/5/2009, 6:25 AM

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Saudi Arabia would turn the other cheek and allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, London’s Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Mossad chief Meir Dagan has told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Syria has hinted to the move.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israel air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source stated.

“The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more that the Israelis,” a former Israeli intelligence head stated.

John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said that it was logical that Saudi Arabia would privately agree. “None of them would say anything about it publicly, but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn’t trumpet it as a big success,” Bolton told several Arab leaders in the Gulf. “To this day, the Israelis haven’t admitted the specifics, but there’s one less nuclear facility in Syria,” Bolton added, referring to Israel’s attack on a Syrian nuclear site in 2007.

Bolton said that the Arab countries would publicly condemn Israel at the U.N. but would breathe easier if the Iranian nuclear threat would be eliminated.

Several media sources reported Friday that an Israeli Dolphin submarine passed through the Suez Canal on its way to the Red Sea last month as part of a naval exercise. Israeli security officials told the Reuters news agency that the exercise was done as part of testing Israel’s strategy in light of the Iranian nuclear threat. Egypt denied the reports.

Two weeks ago, IDF Commander in Chief Gabi Ashkenazi related to Israel’s possibly striking Iran and announced that Iran’s re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requires Israel to keep all its options open. “His severe expression regarding his desire to attack the State of Israel, and the constant allowance of Iran to acquire non-conventional weaponry, requires us to keep the army posted and prepared and the air force ready and sharp like a razor. Our obligation as an army is to put all the options on the table and to be prepared to deal with any threat for near and afar,” Ashkenazi said at an air force graduation course.

Foreign media reported that Israel is performing military maneuvers to prepare for a possible strike on Iran, while Iran is making defensive plans. Among the exercises was an Israeli long-distance refueling in flight to the Straits of Gibraltar and Iran’s employing an anti-ballistic battery a half year ago.

Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, said Friday that Israel could be wiped off the map in seconds if Iran were to make a nuclear strike against Israel. “This is a regime that’s willing to kill its own citizens; it will certainly have no compunctions killing other people in the region, Jews and Sunni Arabs alike,” Oren told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.